Family

I am sitting at work and had some down time which is pretty irregular as of late. I decided to check on our blog and see what our friends and family are up to. I was looking through our pictures from Nicole's last blog about us going to the farm together and hers and Savannah's first mommy daughter outing. At the same time, I was listening to Hilary Weeks, a singer songwriter who sings songs about church and gospel related topics. Listening to the songs and looking at pictures of my family just gave me an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. I appologize to those of you who may find this boring, but we use our blog as a family journal, and I can think of no better topic for a journal than to express thankfulness for all that I have.

Nicole and I have such beautiful children who are happy, healthy and perfect in every way. We have a home in a great city surrounded by a ward family that is amazing. We have jobs that afford us a good life filled with fun adventures and exciting times.

I can't remember what Nicole and I used to do before we had Savannah. I honestly don't. Other than staying up all night watching "24" while living in the married couple dorms at BYU-I, I don't think there was much there. Having our kids to live for is the greatest blessing I can immagine. Hard at times, frustrating daily and crazy all the time. But to know that each day I get out of bed and go to work for something more than just myself. That is life.

I have the most amazing wife in the world. She supports me with all aspects of our life. She stays at home with the kids everyday and ensures that they are being raised in the right way. Then she goes out and works throughout many nights to help out. She is an amazing mother who knows how to handle each of our kids in their own needed ways, dealing with their differences like a master. She is the most positive person I have ever met. No matter what life deals her, she takes it beautifully. I just hope my family knows how much I love them and how Grateful I am to be their father and Husband.

Conference Weekend

The weekend flew by. Last but not least we made Ebelskievers for conference Sunday. If you haven't tried them I HIGHLY suggest you run out, get a pan, and have a ebelskeiver party. So yummy and fun!
Ok so Mike and Savannah go on daddy daughter dates all the time. So on Friday Savannah and I went on our first mommy daughter night out. We went to see a play at the children's theater. It was Cinderella. Savannah was absolutely fascinated the whole time and I loved watching her face while we were in the play! After we got to meet Cinderella. She came right up to Savvy and told her she loved her vest. Savannah proceeded to ask her a series of questions. Why do the boys wear makeup? Why is your hair brown? Why was the ballgown white? The girl was so cute and answered all her questions. On the way home Savvy was nonstop talking about how she wanted to be an actress, she thought it would be SO fun! So cute. And so funny. Little does she know it would be over her parent's dead bodies before anything remotely close to that ever happened. Not exactly what I would dream and wish for for my daughter. But it was super cute to see her so excited. Shave It was the perfect end to the night!

Cole's pick for Creed-yummy

Cole wanted to hand pick everyone pumpkins. This was his pick for himself
I think Mike was having just as much fun riding the trikes as the kids.
This little guy didn't feel the same way. We were running around all day and he started getting mad at the farm. He finally cried himself to sleep. Poor little guy.

They loved feeding the animals carrots. In fact our kids are absolute animal lovers. We gave them the choice or Disneyland or the farm and the both wanted the farm-Savannah had to think about it a little but Cole knew right away. Crazy kids......
Mike was so distraught that I bought Cole this hat. He didn't even want me to post the pics on the blog because of it. Ok in my defense it was like 3 bucks and we are constantly losing hats!! Sorry babe.
Savannah was super excited that her horse's name was Tinkerbell
We picked up Savannah early from school on Friday with the promise of doing something fun....hmmm even though we already have plans to do Underwood Farms next week we decided that would be quick and no traffic. The kids had a blast

Coley got in a pool day with Marina before it got to be too cold! Don't hurry back from Hawaii Vanessa, it is chilly down here now!!

Escaping the Heat

The past two weeks have been too hot for our liking. So on Friday, we finally decided to get out of town and head to Santa Barbara for the day. We love going to the Santa Barbara Zoo. It was easily 15 degrees cooler than here.



Beautiful Nicole enjoying the zoo.

We met our friends the Wests. We love hanging out with friends.

The White Handed Gibbon.

Crazy monkey posed for us.

Savannah and I strolling through the zoo.
The California Condors.

Cole, my little monkey.

Cole and Nicole with the Giraffes.

I always thought it would be cool to work at a zoo. But then I see crazy people like this lady actually talking to penguins, and expecting them to talk back . Weirdo!

Savannah and Cole in front of Savvy's favorite animals. The Flamingos. She goes crazy for them every time. She loves that they are pink, her favorite color.

I don't know what the name of this bird is, but I just thought it is cool looking. It's eyes are blood red. Crazy colors.

More monkeys.
Cute kids. Can't get enough of them. They are always such good kids when we go to the zoo. Except when it's time to leave.
Savannah loves insects and reptiles. This is her looking closely at a vipor I think.

Big fat frogs.
The hissing cockroach exhibit. How exciting!

What a happy little boy. Creed is such a good little boy. Always happy and willing to go everywhere we go.
Beautiful Savannah. She wears uniforms now and it is so nice for Nicole to not have to fight her about what she is wearing everyday. This is before school. And before this crazy heat wave, we were enjoying nice cool mornings, Savvy even needed a jacket! It was in the high 80s and 90s all last week! It is supposed to be back in the 70s this week, I can't wait.

September

Taking advantage of one of the last beach weekends. We randomly got beach camping at Carpinteria for Labor day weekend, I was SO excited. I always look since it's a super nice beach and campground and close to our house, so when I looked the day before and there was availability I jumped on it. So we got to spend the weekend relaxing at the beach. Here is baby Creed living the good life
This is what you need for a day at the beach with a baby. For some reason he doesn't want to sleep in the crib (just play) so we brought the stroller because he loves napping in it. Everytime I go to the beach I feel like the opening scene from Yes, Dear, a comedy that you definitly should tivo if you are in need of any late night nursing tv shows.
Little surfer girl in training
Collecting rocks
Living the good life
We had a few visitors in the night. More like 6 actually. Racoons pushed over our cooler and helped themselves to our eggs and bread. I heard them and made Mike go outside to scare them off. They weren't the scared ones. They didn't even move and just stood there hissing at him! I was super freaked inside the tent trailer hearing them hiss at them. I thought he would come back in all bleeding from those fat racoons. So we got to take a walk in the morning to the local IHOP
It wouldn't be camping without an early morning trip to the restroom. Thank you Mike for capturing this moment on camera
Coley woley
Happy boys!
Some minor home improvements. Although we will miss the pink floral wallpaper, it was time to say good-bye.
We are lucky to have such talented friends. Our friend Melissa who is in interior design suggested the orange wall, Jeremy who is also super talented picked the color, and voila. I would've never picked orange but I totally love it. I wish I had a before picture, the new wall totally brightens up the place. If we could pick one project each month to work on our house would be so awesome. Food for thought.

School Days

We have been posting a ton lately because so much has been going on!! So Savannah had her first day of kindergarten. First off I got called in to the hospital at 4 am so I went in, did my ultrasound and got home at 5. I felt like it was MY first day of school and I had all these butterflies and couldn't go to back to bed. So at 7 I went in to wake up Savannah because I thought she was still sleeping. She had her whole uniform on and was going through her clips deciding which one she wanted to wear in her hair. (notice the new haircut-she picked that herself at the salon the other day-she usually has bangs but they were all sticking up funky today so we did the clips- ANYWAYS) I guess she was as excited as me! She was so ready to go and couldn't care less that she was in my eyes still my baby! She didn't turn to look at me once after I dropped her off. The only one crying was Cole. He decided he didn't like the idea of her going to school and cried the 5 minute walk back to the car. When we picked her up she talked our ears off all about kindergarten happenings, the story she read, and how her and 2 other girls stole play doh from some boys! Scandalous! Can't wait for junior high drama I'm sure that will be here in the blink of an eye.......